Review: Ninja the Mission Force

Let me introduce you to Ed Glaser. He is the owner and executive producer of Dark Maze Studios, an independent producer of films and web series which prides itself on the micro budgets of its production.

The latest offering from Dark Maze Studios is the 10 part web series Ninja the Mission Force. To explain this series I first have to provide some background.

In the 1980s there was a film maker named Godfrey Ho. Ho would obtain the rights to distribute various unreleased Asian action movies. To improve the U.S. appeal for these films he would shoot footage of caucasian actors dressed as ninjas and edited them into the films and then overdub everything to attempt to make them mesh as one story. What resulted was series of movies with a high WTF factor.

Glaser took this concept and ran with it.

The main plot of NTMF is a battle between Gordon (a ninja working for Interpol) and Bruce (leader of the Evil Ninja Empire) to gain control of the seven avian ninja warrior statues (seven rubber ducks in ninja costumes) that will grant the possessor of all seven ultimate ninja power.  

Gordon (played by Glaser) is also dealing with the mysterious disappearance of his wife (played by Sarah Lewis) years ago. This is mitigated somewhat by a virtual avatar of her he interacts with through her self-videotaping project she completed before she vanished.

Bruce (Played by Brad Jones, better known as internet reviewer The Cinema Snob) has anger management issues. Every time one of his minions disappoints him (fails to defeat Gordon, loses the formula to create a zombie horde, gets his lunch order wrong, etc.) he feeds them to his just off screen tiger.

Both have agents that are out in the world searching for the avian ninja warrior statues. These agents are represented through scenes form public domain movies that are edited into each episode. Taking it a step further than Ho, the movies used are often as far from a ninja movie as you can get, including Orson Wells’ The Stranger, John Travolta’s Boy in the Plastic Bubble, and the original Night of the Living Dead. The new dubbed dialog takes these in new directions. The scenes from Boy in the Plastic Bubble are the set up for the Zombie horde and Night of the Living Dead features dogs whose brains have been put into human bodies and set after Gordon’s agents. In keeping with the spirit of the Ho movies, every episode has the word “ninja” in the title.

The overall tone of the show is absurd camp. The ninja fights are staged to highlight the fact that none of the actors have any martial arts training, and yet are presented as master fighters. The first episode features Gordon fighting a cheese ninja and overcoming him using his knowledge of bacon fu.

Each episode is 10 to 15 minutes long. This allows them to move the story along, tell their jokes, and not wear out their welcome.

The biggest strength of the show is also its greatest weakness. The over the top campiness will endear it to some and turn off others.

Overall I find Ninja the Mission force to be an excellent example of a web series. It combines it low budget and campy nature, with some cleaver writing and total commitment by the cast to create a unique program.

Final grade for Ninja the mission for is B+

You can find Ninja the Mission Force online at http://darkmaze.com/ninjathemissionforce/

You can also find in on http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ and http://thecinemasnob.com/

Emerald City Comicon Day One

Quick overview of Day one of Emerald City Comicon.

First up, the panels.

I attended the Women of Webseries panel. It was definitely what the title suggested, local women working on producing, writing, directing, and staring in webseries. I got some good ideas for the projects I want to work on and a lot of inspiration.

DC All Access panel was next. You would think that a panel at a comic convention that is the news panel for one of the big two it would be kick ass. No such luck. The pros on the panel did some quick shilling of their upcoming projects. When it got to question and answer time that was a lot of deflection. One question asked about the status of Wally West and Donna Troy in the new 52 DCU, the answer was to make a joke and then ask the audience if they would like to win a prize for answering a trivia question.

The next panel was about the history of Wonder Woman for an academic and psychological perspective. The speaker was a tenured professor at Oregon State University for teaches minors program on comic book studies. He was awesome. And as much as I have researched at lot of the same history he covered I still learned some new stuff.

I wanted to get into a panel featuring noted voice actors but it was too full a room.

Next is the dealer floor.

This year has a good mix of comic shops, convention dealers, comic companies, artists and everything else you would expect. Due to the show still growing, this year the gaming based dealers were moved to a new area. It’s a bit of a walk to get there, but it is nice to see the growth.

My wife is a vendor this year and that fact lead to my most awesome moment of the day. She makes gaming dice shaped soap. I took a set to Randy Milholland, the creator of Something Positive. When I gave them to him his face lit up, and he had to show his booth mate Danielle Corsetto, creator of Girls with Slingshots. Mission accomplished and he gave me a sketch and print in return.

Cosplay

So I have decided to keep score of the characters people cosplay as this year. Basically if I see at least two people as a character I start keeping track. I will declare a daily winner and an overall convention winner. Here are today’s scores.

·         Doctor Who: 8 Today’s winner

·         Captain America: 6

·         Harley Quinn: 5

·         Batman: 4

·         Poison Ivy: 4

·         The TARDIS: 4

·         Robin: 3

·         Black Canary: 3

·         Superman: 3

·         Batgirl: 3

·         Green Lantern: 2

·         Catwoman: 2

·         Supergirl: 2

·         Spider Man:2

·         Doctor Horrible:2

·         Captain Hammer: 2

·         Death from Sandman: 2

·         Dalek: 2

·         Red Power Ranger: 2

·         Riddler: 2

·         Green Hornet: 2

See you tomorrow for the next update.

The LXD

As I stated in my introductory post for this blog, I am fascinated by new media. Traditional media such as TV, movies, and radio is great and I am clearly a big fan. But with the advent in technology there are new ways of doing things that can open up doors to new experiences.

One example is a web series available on Hulu called the LXD.

The LXD stands for the Legion of Extraordinary Dances. It is written and produced by Jon Chu, who is also responsible for the Step Up movies. But if you did not like those movies, please do not let that turn you off.  LXD is an example of a high concept that would not get a shot in traditional media.

In short LXD is about a select group of people who have the ability to use dance to activate superpowers. Chu described it as a “Justice League of dance”.  It sounds silly but once you get past that it turns out to be a really good show.

When I first started watching I decided to go in assuming it was an art piece. Each episode features a dance sequence and I figured if nothing else I could appreciate that. And if that is the only level you watch it on that is fine. I am not a dance expert by any means, but the dancing earns the title of extraordinary. The show claims to use no wires or special effects of any kind for the dancing or stunts. If this is true then the talent of the dancers is unreal. They use a mix of several types including hip hop styles, tap, ballet, and in a recent episode Flamenco.

As for the story, by the third episode I was starting to buy in and by the 5^th I was sold.

Essentially you have a very classic good vs. evil story. The LXD are our heroes dedicated to protecting the world from those that would use the power (called the RA) for ill. The ones they protect against are Organization X, or the OX. Also in the mix is The Dark Doctor who appears to be against both the LXD and the OX.

The characters are a mix of archetypes having only being misfits in common. They include:

Trevor Drift, a loner high school student who discovers he is a hidden heir of the LXD leadership. When his powers manifest his father is killed and the LXD lead by his previously unknown brother Spex take him in and train him.

Next is Sp3cimen (yes they really spell it that way.) He is a dead soldier brought back to life by the Dark Doctor’s experiments as a human/robot hybrid. He escapes and finds his way to the LXD.

Elliot Hoo is an average man who finds a pair of shoes that grant him the ability to dance and use the RA.

The Fanboyz are a group of nerds (ok Hollywood nerds, but still) from Trevor Drifts high school that learn of the LXD and want to join. They get their RA powers just by trying hard enough to acquire them.

The first 2 seasons of the LXD are 10 episodes long with most episodes being less than 10 minutes long. The current 3^rd season is up to 7 episodes. They have not announced how many this season will have, but I suspect it will be 10 again. No word if there is a 4^th planned, but as it seems doubtful that they are wrapping up the story soon I suspect there will be one.

Seriously check this one out. Give it a few episodes and I think it will surprise you.